Richard Anthony Proctor, Transits of Venus: A Popular Account of Past and Coming Transits, from the First
Observed by Horrocks A.D. 1639 to the Transit of A.D. 2012 (Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1874) –
236 pp. – also published in 1875 by R. Worthington & Co. (New York) – a 4th edition was published in 1882.

J. Donald Fernie, Setting
Sail for the Universe: Astronomers and their Discoveries (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick [etc.], 2002) – collection
of popular essays on the history of astronomy, of which six (nrs. 17 & 19-23) focus on the transits of Venus.

Charles Leadbetter, A Treatise of Eclipses of the Sun and the Moon for
Thirty-Five Years, commencing Anno 1715, ending 1749; containing the
Beginning, Middle and Ending, the Digits eclipsed; together, with the Types
of those that will be Visible at London, with the General Times of the Solar
Eclipses, and the Limits of the Shade of the Moon determined; to which are
added: the Calculations of the Times of the Transits of Venus and Mercury over the Sun,
with the Types thereof, for Seventy-Nine Years, and the Conjunctions of
Jupiter and Saturn, to the Year 1821, 2nd ed. (John Wilcox, London, 1731); 3rd ed. in 3 vols. (???,
London, 1745-’50).

William Whiston, The Transits of Venus and Mercury over the Sun at their Ascending and Descending
Nodes, for Two Centuries and a Half (???, London,
1736).

Simon Newcomb, “Discussion and Results of Observations on Transits of Mercury,
from 1667 to 1881”, Astronomical Papers Prepared for the Use of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac,
1 (1882), 363-484.

Roberdeau Buchanan, The Mathematical Theory of Eclipses according to Chauvenet’s Transformation of Bessel’s
Method Explained and Illustrated, to which are appended Transits of Mercury and Venus and Occultations of Fixed
Stars (J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia/London, 1904) – x+247 pp.

William Haller Cassell, “Transits of Mercury and Venus”, Popular Astronomy, 24 (1916), 171-173.

George Davidson, “The Apparent Projection of Stars upon the Bright Limb of the Moon at Occultation, and similar Phenomena
at Total Solar Eclipses, Transits of Venus and Mercury, etc.”, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences,
3rd series, 1 (1900), 63-102.

In 1645 the Italian astronomer Francesco Fontana claimed that he had discovered a satellite in the
vicinity of Venus through his telescope. Several other astronomers (including Jean Dominique Cassini) made similar claims
during the 17th and 18th century but these claims could never be substantiated.

In 1773 the German astronomer Johann Heinrich Lambert announced an orbit for the supposed satellite which
he assumed to revolve around Venus in an eccentric orbit in 11 days and 5 hours. However, no such satellite was
seen during the transits of Venus in 1761, 1769, 1874 & 1882, although several observers searched diligently for a
satellite near the disk of Venus as it crossed the solar disk.

In 1888 the Belgian astronomer Paul Stroobant published a memoir in which he convincingly argued that in
most cases the observers had either been fooled by ghost images of Venus in their telescopes or a background star. Modern
space missions to the planet Venus have up to now failed to detect any satellite.

In his biography of Charlemagne, the Frankish annalist Einhard reported
that a few years before his death a black spot had been seen on the Sun’s disk for seven
days (Vita Karoli Magni,
cap. 32). Other
contemporary sources placed the event in March 807 and averred that it had been the planet Mercury. Later, Islamic
philosophers as Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Sabbah al Kindi (c. 810 - c. 866), Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn
‘Abdallah ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980 - 1037) and others cited similar observations as proof that the orbits of Mercury and
Venus were situated below that of the Sun.

A transit of Mercury can only be seen with the aid of a telescope,
but a transit of Venus should be visible to the naked eye when the sunlight is sufficiently tempered by thin clouds or dust or when the Sun is near to the
horizon. So it is possible that amongst the many pre-telescopic observations of sunspots noted in Chinese, Islamic,
European and other sources there may lurk an early record of a transit of Venus. However, many of these observations are
only roughly dated, and those reports that are accurately dated do not coincide with a date for a transit of Venus.

Cottie Arthur Burland, “The Consummation of Quetzalcoatl: Transits of Venus in Mexican Inscriptions”, in: Verhandlungen
des XXXVIII. Internationalen Amerikanistenkongresses, Stuttgart-München, 12. bis 18. August 1968
(Renner, Munich, 1969), vol. 2, pp. 155-157 – gives speculative interpretations of Mesoamerican references to
Venus, linking them to transits of Venus in 416, December 659, 9 December 1145 and 25 May 1518 (or
possibly December 1388 or 1396). There were no transits of Venus in 416, 659, 1145 and 1388. The Venus transits of
23 November 1396 and 25 May 1518 were completely and partially visible from the Yucatan peninsula.

A.U. Usmanov, “Ibn Sina and his Contributions in the History of the Development of the Mathematical Sciences”, in:
??? (ed.), Mathematics and Astronomy in the Works of Ibn Sina, his
Contemporaries and Successors (???, Tashkent, 1981), pp. 55-58 &
156 [in Russian, not seen].

John North, Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology (W.W. Norton & Co., New York/London, 1994),
pp. 156-157 – mentions a supposed Maya observation of a transit of Venus on 15 December 1145. No source is quoted
but it appears to be based on Burland (1969). Venus passed just north of the solar disk on 26 November 1145 but there
was no transit.